We almost always take our big, week-or-so vacation the first week of September. Usually we go camping somewhere along the Redneck Riviera; known to some as the Florida panhandle. It really is lovely down there, and the Gulf of Mexico is like a giant, salty bathtub. You can float and drink beer all day. I still prefer the Outer Banks of NC, but that’s a 15-hour drive from here.

Anyway, no beach for us this year. One of my cousins rudely (just kidding!) decided to get married on August 31, so we’re going to the mountains of NC for the wedding. I tried and tried to figure out how to turn this into a beach vacation, but it just isn’t going to happen. We decided that since we’ll be halfway to DC for the wedding, we’re going to head up there and spend the first week of September with my 98-year old grandmother. I know it’ll be fun - I do love DC, and my Granny - but, damn, I NEED some beach.

I took yesterday and Monday off in the hopes that we could get a quick beach trip in this weekend. No way. Gas at $4/gallon and all the campsites booked until October. Let me just say that Florida’s State Park relatively new system of online and phone reservations ONLY for campsite blows chunks. We used to be able to drive to the coast, nab a campsite for a couple of days, and have a great time. Our Alabama beaches are nice, too, (yes, Alabama has a coastline - I didn’t know either until we’d moved here), but all their sites were booked through July 5.

So, I’m at home. It could be worse, really. There’s plenty to do in the garden, which is growing like crazy, and we’ll have our first tomatoes within the week, I think. There’s plenty to do around the house. I could be insanely productive. I could get started on my review of Ahab’s Wife.

Instead, I’m planted in the comfy chair, re-reading Kage Baker’s Sky Coyote, after having re-read In the Garden of Iden yesterday. I can’t help it: I was just going for some brain candy, but her books are so wonderful that I’m sucked in: I can’t stop. I’ve decided to re-read the entire Company series, in order. I’m missing Black Projects, White Knights, though, so this (combined with my B & N coupon) seems the perfect opportunity to buy it.

And anyway, it’s hot. Really hot. And humid. I don’t cope with it well. This is the time of year when I confine most of my gardening to the early morning and early evening hours. I’m going to make another latte and read as much as possible before we venture out this afternoon to see the Blue Angels at the air show.

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